Vive

HTC Vive has recently announced the Vive Libraries Program, which will start bringing VR to over 100 libraries in California and Nevada. Vive has donated 100 Vive headsets to public libraries across the state bringing VR to more people.

“This generous contribution by Vive is helping bring a virtual world of adventure and learning to communities across California. As more virtual reality stations take root across our library system, we are seeing positive learning impacts and visitors that are genuinely excited about technology and education.”

— Greg Lucas, California State Librarian

On the content side, Vive Studios has developed over 35 VR titles on the educational and experimental front, which will be available on the Viveport platform. This is a generous step in the right direction for individuals that don’t have access to premium VR content and great overall for libraries to adapt moving forward. Hopefully this can reach every state on the national level but it’s a good start. Below are titles that will be available in the Vive Libraries Program including a video.

Vive Libraries Program Content List

Adventures in Space

Amazon Odyssey

Ancient Adventures

Berlin Wall: The Virtual Reality Experience

Beyond Tokyo

Buzz Aldrin: Cycling Pathways to Mars

Calcflow

COSM Worlds within Worlds

Earthlight VR: Spacewalk

Everest VR

Jam Studio VR

Lifeliqe VR Museum

Lumen

Lunar Learning & Earthly Robots

MakeVR Pro

Mars Odyssey

Masterpiece VR

Masters of Design

Modigliani VR: The Ochre Atelier

Newton’s House of Forces

Oceans of Wonder

Operation Apex

Rad Robots

Realities.io

Remembering Pearl Harbor

Remind VR: Daily Meditation

SculptrVR

Stonehenge VR

Super Puzzle Galaxy

Take Flight!

The Night Cafe: A VR Tribute to Van Gogh

The Physiology of the Eye

TrueScale

Unabomber: The Virtual Reality Experience

Unbound

Wisemind

Vive Libraries Program launches in California and Nevada was last modified: June 21st, 2018 by Evan Marcus

HTC has announced its latest beauty, the HTC Vive Pro today at CES 2018. The main features being it’s magically wireless and includes a pair of higher resolution screens at 2880×1600 (a 78% increase), compared to the original Vive with a resolution of 1080×1200.

There’s also plans to release SteamVR’s 2.0 Sensor Tracking which will allow players to have up to a 10 by 10 meter radius. To add to the mix is a 2nd front facing camera which doesn’t seem to have a use case yet, but could provide developers with the ability to utilize the 2nd camera for advanced features like depth tracking and more.

The other noticeable feature which gives me great excitement is the attached hi-res headphones with a redesigned head strap and integrated 3D-Spatial Audio. Similar to the Oculus HMD, the Vive now comes with solid headphones attached rather then spending extra for the deluxe audio strap like the original Vive.

In addition to the HTC Vive Pro, comes the Vive Wireless Adaptor which will give a truly wireless VR experience available for the Vive Pro and the Vive. Features for the Vive Wireless Adaptor include Intel’s WiGig technology and operates in the interference-free 60Ghz band, which from what Vive’s blog says reduces latency and provides better performance.

In addition to the HTC Vive Pro announcement comes HTC’s updated Viveport VR experience which seems like a major overhaul considering earlier versions of Viveport had issues and many users preferred Steam instead. This is HTC’s chance to redeem themselves for the Viveport platform, and from the video below, it’s looking very cool.

Also announced at CES was Vive Video with VIMEO that brings some well needed features to the Vive, and considering VR Video overall still needs resolution improvements, this is a step in the right direction with the Vive Pro’s increased resolution and 4K streaming video from Vimeo. Overall this is major news for HTC and the Vive Pro HMD and it will no doubt keep Oculus on their heels as plans for Wireless VR come to fruition in 2018.

HTC VIVE Pro Announced at CES 2018 was last modified: January 9th, 2018 by Evan Marcus

Space Pirate Trainer is a simple arcade style VR shooter for the HTC Vive/Oculus Rift released on October 12th, 2017. With the majority of games these days, trailers always make you think the game is 1000x better then it usually is, so personally I wasn’t expecting too much from this, and boy was I wrong.

The game itself is really everything I wanted, simple to learn with one main menu to choose options from and within seconds you’re in the game and playing. Also when you start the game, your controllers are instantly guns which is another bonus, easy to shoot at the menu system and quickly jump into gameplay.

Another thing that’s nice for beginners to VR is the stationary movement. Some games require you to move around in the game with a controller which takes a bit of getting used to and still makes some people dizzy at times, with Space Pirate Trainer, you don’t have to worry about movement besides dodging, for the most part you’re in one position and just trying not to get killed as you battle evil space bots from the top of the Space Pirate Trainer platform. As simple as the game is, it’s easy to learn but hard to master, which makes it fun and addictive and honestly hard to put down, not to mention global online leaderboards for the super competitive nerd rangers out there.

For the game modes you have a variety of options to choose from.

First you have Arcade which gives you 3 lives total, with waves getting harder each round.

There’s also Explorer Mode which gives you health regen but only 50% points.

Hardcore Mode is also fun but doesn’t include bullet time, making it harder to dodge projectiles.

Last is Oldschool which is my personal favorite, the waves start out easy and get more difficult as you progress.

As for weapons, you have a bunch of options and can change weapons on the fly with your touch controller. Weapons range from the Quarkcannon, Pulse Laser, Shotworks, Railgun, Raygun, Ion Grenade and Brawler.

For $14.99 on Steam, Space Pirate Trainer is a solid addition to any VR collection and well worth the price tag.